Rogue Emperor

by Crawford Kilian

  His only chance for escape would come when they took him out of the cage. Unless Martellus wanted him to fight in chains, they would free him, march him into the pens under the Amphitheater, and then drive him into the arena. If he could wrest a sword from someone, he might just cut his way out of the arena and into the tunnels, but the Crucifers would have their guns trained on him.

  So the only real chance would come when they took off his irons. If that happened in the arena, he was doomed. If it happened anywhere else, he might just break free and escape: to Juvenal’s, to Verrus’s, to Plinius’s house on the Esquiline or even his estate at Laurentum.

  Steady on, old son, the phantom Wigner cautioned him. You’ve been professionally beaten, you look as if you’ve been dragged through a slaughterhouse face first, and you have neither weapons nor money. Your best efforts would probably just get you killed in the Subura instead of the arena.

  And maybe I’d take a couple of Praetorians with me, Pierce answered the phantom. Or Crucifers.

  *

  He shuddered through the night, covered with nothing but his stinking tunic and a little straw. The noxii sobbed, quarreled, and buggered each other.

  Next morning, very early, Sabina appeared. She squatted down comfortably outside his cage.

  “You look better but you smell worse,” she said. “I’ll be seeing you in the arena after all. Scaurus says I’m helping with the backdrops, and then in the spoliarium to keep the trophy hunters out.”

  An idea occurred to Pierce. He analyzed it as he lurched a little closer to her and sprawled on the damp straw. Licking his cracked lips, he spoke very softly, so the noxii couldn’t hear. “How would you like to be free and rich, Sabina? The richest woman in Rome?”

  She smiled. “Does the emperor need a wife?”

  “I’m a dead man.” She nodded, her intelligent brown eyes reflecting no undue sympathy. “I have no hope of escape, but perhaps a hope of revenge. I’m a Hesperian. My people will soon return to Rome to overthrow Martellus and put Trajan in power. Even if I die in the arena, if you can help me my people will pay you more than you can count.”

  Sabina chuckled. “And Scaurus will flog me more times than I can count.”

  “Scaurus will know nothing about it.”

  “He will if I tell him.”

  “That’s for you to decide. You have the power of life and death over me. I will tell you what I want. You can tell Scaurus if you like. But if you don’t, and you help me, you will never want for anything again.”

  “I don’t believe you, but I’ll do it anyway. If I can.” Pierce frowned in surprise. “Why?”

  “Hesperians wouldn’t trouble with a nobody like me. But in the spoliarium, when poor Eros was lying there, you touched my shoulder and looked at me, and I saw something in your eyes. You understood what I felt.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “There’s a storeroom off the tunnel from the Porta Libitinensis,” Pierce said. “Behind some boxes, I think there is a metal tube, wrapped in cloth.”

  *

  That afternoon he had violent diarrhea, making the cage stink worse than ever. Near sundown, Maria and two Crucifers arrived with Scaurus escorting them. They all looked distastefully through the bars at Pierce.

  “His bowels have turned to water,” Scaurus observed cheerfully. “Happens all the time, even with the gladiators. Tomorrow night we’ll have a big feast for all the fighters, and most of them will spend the night in the privy.”

  Maria nodded absently and spoke to Pierce in Latin: “I wish they’d let me interrogate you, Alaricus. Brother Willard’s too gentle. But I’d have pulled the truth out of you.”

  “Perhaps too much truth, my lady.”

  Hatred burned in her eyes. “You presented yourself like an angel, but now I see you as you really are.”

  “My lady — I did find the Christians.”

  Maria sneered. “Another lie.”

  “I met Sanctus Marcus, my lady. He who wrote the gospel. He is a very old man, but he was at the crucifixion of our Lord.”

  Now her face was pale.

  “He says Martellus is a false Christ. And he is very sad, because the Praetorians have murdered all his children and grandchildren. He is a Jew, of course.”

  The other two Crucifers evidently understood Latin, so they looked astounded as she suddenly flung herself against the bars, reaching toward him with clawlike hands and screaming “Liar! Liar! Liar!” in English. By the time she remembered her Ruger and tried to draw it, they had gripped her arms and pulled the pistol away from her. Then they drew her away from the shed, while she went on screaming and Scaurus looked both amused and alarmed.

  Pierce sagged back into the stinking straw, furious with himself. For the sake of upsetting her, he had risked his life. Worse: He had risked his one hope for vengeance.

  Twenty-four

  During the night Pierce heard the gladiators carousing in a building near the practice arena. Following tradition, Martellus as giver of tomorrow’s show was laying on a banquet for his fighters. Some would be gorging on what might be their last meal, and drinking themselves sodden; others would eat little and drink nothing. Around midnight the party broke up as gladiators staggered back to their barracks — or, as Scaurus had foretold, the privies. Pierce saw the occasional beam of a flashlight and heard snatches of English: Evidently some of the Militants had joined the party.

  The night was cold and misty. Pierce lay curled on his side, straw pulled up around him from warmth, and listened to the clank and squeal of iron-shod wagon wheels on the paving stones of the Amphitheater plaza nearby. The other prisoners snored or wept. They were sorry wretches; two were clearly schizophrenics, the other four slow-witted bumpkins who scarcely understood what was happening to them.

  Sabina’s voice murmured out of the darkness: “Sst, Alaricus — you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I got into the tunnel today. The metal tube is right where you said it was.”

  Pierce sat up slowly. His wrists and ankles were sticky with blood from the chafing of the iron cuffs. “Good. Will you be able to get it out?”

  “I’m not a weakling.”

  “And you can get into the arena?”

  “Of course. You just have to stay alive until I can get the tube out to you.”

  “Good. Good.” He slumped back into his straw. “Sleep well, Sabina.” He was asleep before she replied.

  At dawn, slaves opened the cages and hauled out the prisoners. Guards with spears shoved them down the muddy lane to the school’s bathhouse, where slaves doused the noxii with buckets of water. Pierce felt far from clean, but the crude bath revived him.

  Around them, the school was tense and excited. Gladiators who were scheduled to fight moved gravely through the lanes, first to breakfast, then to a bath, and last to be dressed for combat. Others talked together in eager undertones. Pierce and his fellow prisoners were ignored; they stood under guard outside the baths while trainers and fighters shouldered past them. Sabina was nowhere in sight.

  The sun was well up now, though Pierce shivered in his soaked tunic. His enhanced senses exhilarated him: the blue of the sky, the intricate texture of a brick wall, the oddly delicate fingers of one of his fellow prisoners — everything was rich and intense. The ache of B&C was still there, but he shrugged it off. If this was the last day of his life, he would enjoy whatever it had to offer.

  After an hour or so, a slave sauntered up to the guards. “These damnati are to go over to the Amphitheater now.”

  “About time,” the guards’ leader muttered. “All right, boys, let’s go.”

  In a ragged clump, the prisoners shuffled through the school, out the gate, and across the plaza toward the Amphitheater. They entered the gladiators’ gate, on the east end of the building, but were quickly shunted into a side corridor lighted by a single olive-oil lamp. “You can sit down if you like,” the guards’ leader said.

/>   Overhead, the cheers of the crowd came faintly. The fights had begun not long after dawn and would continue until noon; then many people would go home for lunch, unless the execution of the noxii promised to be amusing. Pierce considered overpowering the guards and making a break, but rejected the idea. The four guards carried razor-sharp spears, and while they seemed relaxed and mild, they never took their eyes off the prisoners. Even if Pierce could get away, he was crippled by his chains and by exhaustion. They could cut him down before he even reached the plaza.

  He slumped against a wall, put his head on his knees, and thought, working through all the possibilities. It would be a near thing at best. He would have to move fast, trusting that the T-60 was in operating condition, and get off the missile within a couple of seconds of shouldering the launcher. Otherwise the Crucifers would see what he was trying to do, and they would blow him to bits before he could fire.

  The morning passed. At last the guards said, “All right, boys, time to meet the gladiators.”

  A couple of the noxii burst into screams and tried to break free. The guards clubbed them half-senseless with the butts of their spears, then shoved them along with kicks and blows. Pierce said nothing. He got up and walked silently before the guards, through a maze of stone corridors that gradually climbed into light.

  The sun blazed off the sand, forcing Pierce to squint. A sardonic cheer roared up from the crowd. When his eyes had adjusted to the glare, Pierce looked up and saw the seats of the Amphitheater climbing up and up, a hundred meters to the awning masts, and almost every seat taken. How many? Fifty, sixty thousand?

  The last gladiator of the morning was being dragged out feet first by slaves dressed as Mercury, while Black boys hastily raked the sand and a Roman band played Arab-like music. In the center of the arena six posts stood in a circle, each about one and a half meters high; not far away from them was a squat gladiator in silver-plated armor and the helmet of a myrmillo: Astavius, the fighter Pierce had met in the arena just after Domitian’s death.

  The guards marched their prisoners across the sand and backed them up against the posts. Each man’s elbows were pulled back and roped together behind the post, so that the chains on their wrists lay tight across their chests. As the guards tied Pierce, he felt a wave of nausea: They were going to butcher him after all. He would have no chance to stay alive, to use the T-60.

  Frantically he tugged at the rope holding his elbows, but it was far too strong. He tried to pull his wrist chains, hoping to break a link, and failed.

  “Romans.” It was Martel’s voice, amplified and echoing. “For your noon enjoyment I offer you something a little different.”

  Pierce turned his head and saw the emperor, standing on the repaired pulvinar and speaking into a ringmike. His toga was dazzling white in the sunshine. Behind him sat various Militants: the Elders, Maria, a few others. They looked uncomfortable, facing south into the hot sun; Pierce wondered how they had enjoyed the morning.

  “First, each of these noxii shall die in a different way. Watch closely.”

  Without much ceremony, Astavius clumped up to one of the prisoners, touched the shivering man’s belly with the point of his sword, leaned back, and swung it in an irresistible sweep. Pierce, only a meter away, could scarcely hear the victim’s scream over the roar of the crowd. The disemboweled man took some time to die; Astavius, his silver breastplate splashed crimson, went on to the next one, swung again, and beheaded him.

  The crowd seemed to enjoy it. Within a few minutes Pierce was the only prisoner still alive.

  “Now,” Martel said. “This last fellow is a Hesperian, and a clever tool of Satan. We’re going to play a game with him, and see how long he can evade the swords of Astavius and the others. The man who slays him will earn a thousand aureii for ridding Rome of a viper.”

  Pierce turned his head toward the gladiators’ gate and saw four more armored men marching toward him. Each carried a short sword but no shield.

  Astavius stood before Pierce, watching Martel for a signal. “This is foolishness,” Astavius muttered. He had an oddly high voice for such a burly man. “The people want a proper fight or a proper execution, not this running about.”

  “How can I run in chains?”

  The gladiator frowned at him. “I’m supposed to strike them off. This is a kind of thing that can ruin a man’s reputation.”

  “I’ll tell the emperor that when we meet next.”

  Astavius suppressed a laugh. Martel called out: “Myrmillo, free this wretch from his shackles”

  The gladiator obediently inserted a key in the cuffs of Pierce’s leg irons and twisted. Each cuff popped open. The four other gladiators stood close around Pierce.

  “I don’t want to kill you boys,” Pierce said as Astavius worked on the wrist cuffs.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t,” said one of the gladiators.

  “I will, if only to buy a little time. Just put on a bit of a show, chase me around, and you’ll be richer than Martellus himself.”

  They looked at one another as Astavius cut the rope around Pierce’s elbows. “Dementia,” one of them said.

  “Very well, gladiators,” Martellus roared over the sound system. “At the count of three: one, two, three!”

  Astavius’s helmet had broad wings and a hinged faceplate with a grid over the eyes. Pierce’s fingers stabbed through the grid, then gripped the faceplate. The blinded gladiator, reflexively jerking backward, needed only a light shove to be thrown flat. With every muscle aching, Pierce lunged forward, stepping on Astavius’s armored chest and springing out of the circle of swordsmen.

  Somewhere far away was the roar of the crowd, but for Pierce the only reality was the quartet of men turning to attack him. He skipped away, edging toward the Porta Libitinensis, with the swordsmen close behind him. At the posts, Astavius writhed among the corpses.

  A tall, wiry swordsman rushed Pierce, his mouth wide in a scream drowned out by the crowd. The point of the sword rose in an arc toward Pierce’s belly; he stepped aside, gripped the man’s wrist, and broke it as he had broken the Crucifer’s arm before Martel and the Elders. Pierce pulled the sword from the man’s limp hand, shoved against another attacker, and stepped back to gain some room.

  Where was Sabina? He parried a lunge from one of the three remaining gladiators, then sliced the man’s thigh open to the bone. The gladiator’s cry, muffled by his faceplate, was almost lost in the roar of the crowd.

  Far more cautious now, the two remaining men circled Pierce. Careful: disable them too soon and Martel might simply order the Crucifers to open fire. The noise of the crowd made it hard to focus. The two men were closing in from opposite sides, each preferring a shared reward and life to spend it in.

  “I told you!” Pierce shouted. “Take your time. I just need a little more time!”

  They ignored him, their eyes implacable behind their faceplates: boys of nineteen or twenty, their only purpose in life to kill. Pierce chose the shorter one, rushed him, and knocked his sword aside. In the same motion he cracked the boy’s head with the flat of his blade.

  “Alaricus!”

  Sabina’s shrill voice made him turn. She was sprinting from the Porta Libitinensis, carrying the T-60 in its cloth wrapping. He ran to meet her, took the T-60, and unrolled it.

  The last gladiator hacked at him. Pierce dropped and rolled, clutching the missile. The sand felt like broken glass under his skin.

  He came to his feet facing north, with the pulvinar about thirty meters away and off to his left. The last gladiator was close behind; he had punched Sabina, who lay sprawled near the Porta. Pierce put the launcher on his shoulder and swung round, trying to hit the man with the missile, but the gladiator dodged away and lunged in —

  — and snapped backward, half his face exploding in a red spray. It was clearly the effect of a Mallory at maximum impact; the Crucifers must be shooting at him already. He swung back, pulling the launcher closer, and saw the Crucifers crowding around M
artel with their guns out and Maria in the forefront. But they were looking up in the stands, not at Pierce; he followed their gaze and saw a short, dark-haired, boy in a plain toga, holding a Mallory in both hands and firing down at the pulvinar: Gaius Aquilius Faber.

  Putting his eye to the sight, Pierce found the crowd of Militants: Willard with his beard, Greenbaugh’s sallow face, Elias Smith clutching a bleeding arm, Maria pumping shots up at Aquilius, Martel pointing back at Pierce and shouting over the PA system:

  “The Iffer, you fools! The Iffer, down there!”

  The missile shuddered on his shoulder and struck almost instantly. Pierce dropped, hands pressed to his ears, and rolled. Debris pattered down around him — fragments of marble and brick, scraps of leather and fabric, part of a silver platter, an uptime boot with a foot still in it.

  Pierce got up, looked for the Porta Libitinensis, and staggered toward it. Sabina had recovered, and ran toward him, her brown legs flashing. He felt her strong, narrow hand grip his, pulling him toward the safety of the tunnel. He managed to focus on her and saw her laughing.

  At the blood-smeared entry to the gate of the dead, Pierce stopped and turned. This time, no soldiers prowled the pulvinar looking for survivors. The whole north quadrant of the stands was emptying, except for the dead and wounded. In the rest of the Amphitheater the crowds were struggling for the exits also, though some stood peering at the smoke and ruin in the emperor’s box. Pierce could not see Aquilius.

  “Come on,” Sabina said. Her voice seemed to come from far away. He obeyed, lurching forward into the gate dedicated to Libitina, the goddess of the dead.

  Twenty-five

  They hid in the spoliarium, sitting in darkness that smelled of the corpses around them. Sometimes they heard shouts and footsteps in the distance, but no one entered the room of the dead, even to take relics from the gladiators. Sabina held him in her arms and stroked his head, murmuring in a country dialect he could barely understand. He enjoyed her nearness and dozed a little.